Pages

20091001

Afrikaans shopowner’s killer gets 30 years prison

2009-09-30 VANDERBIJLPARK COURT -- Sonja van Buul, journalist at Beeld newspaper, reports that the 26-year-old killer of 64-year-old Dianna Angelbauer, owner of Dianna’s pawn shop, burst into tears when he heard his sentence: an effective 30 years in prison. He had killed Mrs Angelbauer, his employer, by bashing her to death with a hammer on May 19 2009.

Police inspector Kinnie Steyn of the Vanderbijlpark police station commented that ‘excellent police work is rewarded by a heavy sentence like this. This sentence sends a clear message to criminals that crime will not remain unpunished.’

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '